WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) today denounced the Trump Administration’s action to immediately halt all advertising and other outreach activities for the ACA Marketplaces by HHS in the critical last few days of Open Enrollment.
“It is shameful to see the Trump Administration deliberately undermining the ACA Marketplaces in 2017,” Rep. Grijalva said. “The Administration issued this order during the critical last days before the January 31 enrollment deadline, when enrollment usually surges. As health experts have pointed out, pulling this advertising now could result in reduced enrollment and could make the Marketplaces less healthy, with fewer young people signing up.”
This destructive action by the Administration will actually waste, not save, taxpayer dollars, since the government had already purchased the ads that were going to run.
The White House order is designed to undermine enrollment in one of the two weeks of the enrollment season that has the largest surge of consumers signing up. In the three years since the Marketplaces began, the final day of enrollment has been the second-biggest day of enrollment, topped only by December 31, the deadline for people seeking coverage effective January 1st.
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